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AUTHOR: 


WOODERIDGE, 
FREDEF^ICK  J. 


TITLE: 


METAPHYSiOS 


JL     M...^.£A  %^''  M-..^'  ♦ 


NEW  YORK 


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1908 


COLUMBIA  UNIVERSITY  LIBRARIES 
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Woodbndge,  Frederick  James  Eugene,  1867- 1940 .        - 

Metaphysics  [a  leotiire  delivered  at  Columbia  univer- 
sity in  the  series  on  science,  philosophy  and  art,  March  18;^ 
1908]  by  Frederick  J.  E.Woodbridge  ...    New  York,  The    \ 
Columbia  university  press,  1908. 

26  p.   24"°.  (Columbia  university, lectures   in  sciencej 
Dhilosophy  and  art,    1907-08     no   19) 


Another  copy.      1908*    . 
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METAPHYSICS 


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BY 


FREDERICK  J.  E.  WOODBRIDGE 

JOHNSONIAN   PROFESSOR   OF  PHILOSOPHY 
COLUMBIA  UNIVERSITY 


THE  COLUMBIA  UNIVERSITY  PRESS 

1908 


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■1 

1 


METAPHYSICS 


A  LECTURE  DELIVERED  AT  COLUMBIA  UNIVERSITY 
IN  THE  SERIES  ON  SCIENCE,  PHILOSOPHY  AND  ART 

MARCH  18,  1908 


/ 


/■ 


METAPHYSICS 


BY 


FREDERICK  J.  E.  WOODBRIDGE 

JOHNSONIAN   PROFESSOR    OF   PHILOSOPHY 
COLUMBIA   UNIVERSITY 


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THE  COLUMBIA  ;lV']*rVjejlSITY  PRESS 

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Copyright,  1908, 
By  THE  COLUMBIA  UNIVERSITY  PRESS. 


Set  up,  and  published  April,  1908. 


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The  first  book  to  bear  the  title  "Metaphysics"  is  attributed 
to  Aristotle.  If  the  title  described  or  suggested  the  con- 
tents of  the  book,  there  might  have  been  less  confusion  re- 
garding the  nature  of  the  science.  To  some,  however,  it 
means  the  mysterious,  to  others,  the  exceptionally  pro- 
found; while  still  others  see  in  it  an  occasion  for  mirth. 
There  have  been,  consequently,  many  definitions  of  meta- 
physics. The  Century  Dictionary  gives,  among  others,  the 
following:  "The  doctrine  of  first  principles";  "Super- 
natural science;  the  doctrine  of  that  which  transcends  all 
human  experience";  "The  science  of  the  mind  treated  by 
means  of  introspection  and  analysis,  and  not  by  experiment 
and  scientific  observation" ;  "Any  doctrine  based  upon  pre- 
sumption and  not  upon  inductive  reasoning  and  observa- 
tion"; "An  abstract  and  abstruse  body  of  doctrine  sup- 
posed to  be  virtually  taken  for  granted  in  some  science"; 
"Used  frequently  with  the  definite  article,  and  generally 
connected  with  unpleasant  associations,  as  being  a  study 
very  dry  and  at  the  same  time  of  doubtful  truth."  To 
these  definitions  might  be  added  that  by  Professor  James : 
"An  unusually  obstinate  attempt  to  think  clearly  and  con-|  j 
sistently."  ^^ 

Such  variety  of  definition  is  largely  due  to  the  fact  that 
the  title  given  to  Aristotle's  book  was  an  unfortunate 
choice.    It  appears  to  indicate  that  when  you  have  finished  ^ 
your  physics,  the  science  which  was  originally  thought  to 
embrace  nature,  you  must  then  pass  beyond  physics  and 

5 


41^^-^  4 


I 

( 


somehow  cut  loose  from  nature  herself.  After  physics, 
metaphysics;  after  nature,  the  supernatural— that  is  an 
invitation  at  once  to  titanic  effort  and  to  Icarian  folly. 
^  Metaphysics  came  to  suggest  such  human  possibilities 
V  Originally,  however,  the  term  represented  no  more  tha^ 
the  happy  thought  of  an  enterprising  editor.  For,  we  a  i 
told,  Andronicus  of  Rhodes,  in  the  first  century  B.  C.f 
finding  among  the  works  of  Aristotle  a  number  of  loosely 
connected  writings  which  the  great  Greek  had  neglected 
to  name,  placed  these  writings  after  the  books  on  physics, 
and  named  them  accordingly,  ra  /xera  tcl  <^vcn/ca,  the  books 
which  come  after  the  books  on  physics.  A  name  which 
thus  indicated  only  an  editorial  arrangement  became  the 
name  of  a  department  of  knowledge.  That  is  not  the  only 
time  when  an  editor's  happy  thought  has  been  the  cause  of 

mischief. 

If,  however,  we  turn  from  the  inspiring  title  to  the  writ- 
ings themselves,  illusions  about  the  supernatural  character 
of  metaphysics  tend  to  disappear.    "There  is,"  so  we  are 
told  by  the  Stagirite,  "a  science  which  investigates  exist- 
ence as  existence  and  whatever  belongs  to  existence  as 
such.     It  is  identical  with  none  of  the   sciences   which 
are  defined  less  generally.    For  none  of  these  professedly 
considers  existence  as  existence,  but  each,  restricting  itself 
to  some  aspect  of  it,  investigates  the  general  aspect  only 
'  incidentally,  as  do  the  mathematical  sciences."     The  em- 
phasis is  thus  put  by  Aristotle  on  fact  and  on  nature,  but 
it  is  put  on  fact  and  nature  as  we  attempt  to  view  them 
with  at  once  the  least  and  with  the  greatest  restriction: 
with  the  least  restriction,  because  we  are  invited  to  view 
nature  in  the  light  of  her  most  comprehensive  characters ; 
with  the  greatest  restriction,  because  we  are  invited  to 
view  her  stripped  of  her  wonderful  diversity. 

In  thus  conceiving  a  science  whose  distinguishing  mark 
should  be  that  it  applies  to  all  existence,  Aristotle  noted  a 

6 


fact  which  the  history  of  intellectual  progress  has  abun- 
dantly illustrated,  the  fact,  namely,  that  knowledge  grows 
in  extent  and  richness  only  through  speciahzation.  Nature 
herself  is  a  specialized  matter.  She  does  things  by  pro- 
ducing differences,  individuals,  variations.  To  grasp  this 
variety,  a  variety  of  sciences  is  necessary.  Indeed,  as 
Aristotle  estimates  the  achievements  of  his  predecessors, 
he  finds  the  source  of  their  confusion,  inadequacy,  and  limi- 
tation to  lie  in  their  habit  of  regarding  each  his  own  special 
science  as  a  sufficient  account  of  the  cosmos.  What  they 
said  may  have  been  true  under  the  restrictions  which  their 
limited  field  imposed  upon  their  utterance;  but  it  became 
false  when  it  was  transferred  to  other  fields  differently 
limited.  Following  his  own  illustrations  we  may  say,  for 
instance,  that  the  Pythagoreans  were  quite  right  in  trying 
to  formulate  the  undoubted  nimierical  relations  which  ob- 
tain in  nature ;  but  they  were  quite  wrong  if  they  conceived 
arithmetic  to  be  an  adequate  astronomy.  The  soul  may  be 
a  harmony  of  the  body  and  thus  capable  of  numerical  ex- 
pression, but  to  think  one  has  exhausted  its  nature  by  de- 
fining it  as  a  moving  nimiber  is  to  forget  the  natural  limi- 
tations of  inquiry  and  to  make  a  rhetorical  phrase  the 
substitute  for  scientific  insight.  We  may  properly  speak 
of  a  sick  soul  as  out  of  tune,  but  we  should  not  thereby 
become  either  psychologists  or  physicians.  No ;  knowledge  \ 
is  a  matter  of  special  sciences,  each  growing  sanely  as  it 
clearly  recognizes  the  particular  and  specialized  aspect  of  | 
nature  with  which  it  deals,  but  becoming  confused  when  j 
it  forgets  that  it  is  one  of  many.  Accordingly  what  we 
call  the  philosophy  of  Aristotle  is  not  a  single  science  to  be 
described  by  a  picturesque  or  a  provoking  name,  but  a  \ 
system  of  sciences  the  members  of  which  should  be  related  j 
to  one  another  in  the  way  nature  rather  than  desire  permits.  I 

If  knowledge  increases  thus  through  limitation,  restric- 
tion, and  specialization,  if  science  grows  through  the  mul- 

7 


\tiplication  of  diflferent  sciences,  must  our  final  view  of 
mature  reveal  her  as  a  parceled  and  disjointed  thing?    Is 
[the  desire  to  say  something  about  the  universe  as  a  whole 
jwhich  may  none  the  less  be  true  of  it,  is  that  desire  without 
Warrant,    something    utterly    to   be    condemned?      Not, 
thought  Aristotle,  if  that  desire  is  checked  and  controlled 
by  fact.     We  should  indeed  err  if  we  thought  to  attain 
unity  through  any  artificial  combination  of  special  truths, 
or  by  attempting  so  to  reduce  the  diversity  of  the  sciences 
I  that  their  individual  differences  should  disappear.    Yet  we 
I  may  approach  unity  through  the  same  method  by  which 
[the  special  sciences  gain  their  individual  coherence  and 
I  stability,  that  is,  by  limitation  and  restriction  of  field.    All 
j  things  somehow  exist ;  and  because  they  so  obviously  do, 
we  can  never  lose  sight  of  the  fact  that  existence  itself  is  a 
problem  irrespective  of  the  fact  whether  a  particular  ex- 
istence is  that  of  a  stone,  a  man,  or  a  god.     Particular 
existences  may  carry  us  at  last  to  some  exclusive  and  in- 
alienable core  of  individuality,  hidden  somewhere  and  pos- 
sibly discoverable,   but   existence  itself  is  possessed  by 
nothing  exclusively.    It  is  rather  the  common  feature  of 
everything  that  can  be  investigated,  and  as  such  is  some- 
thing to  be  looked  into.    Whether  such  looking  is  fruitful 
is  a  question  not  to  be  prejudiced.    The  fruitfulness  of  the 
inquiry  depends  upon  the  discovery  whether  existence  as 
such  has  anything  to  reveal.    We  thus  return  to  Aristotle's 
conception  of  a  science  of  existence  as  existence,  a  special- 
ized and  restricted  science,  doing  its  own  work  and  not  that 
of  the  mathematician  or  the  physicist  or  the  biologist,  or 
of  any  other  investigator,  a  science  which  should  take  its 
place  in  that  system  of  sciences  the  aim  of  which  is  to  reveal 
to  us  with  growing  clearness  the  world  in  which  we  live. 
It  was  that  science  which  Andronicus  of  Rhodes  called 
"Metaphysics,"  baptizing  it  in  the  name  of  ambiguity,  con- 
fusion, and  idiosyncrasy. 

8 


For  me  it  would  be  a  congenial  task  to  devote  the  re- 
mainder of  this  lecture  to  a  detailed  exposition  of  the 
metaphysics  of  Aristotle.    It  would  be  the  more  congenial, 
since  the  lecturer  on  history,  by  making  the  ancients  our 
contemporaries,  has  saved  enthusiasm  for  the  Stagirite 
from  being  condemned  as  a  mere  anachronism.     To  call 
Aristotle,  as  Dante  is  supposed  to  have  done,  the  master 
of  them  that  know,  even  if  they  know  no  less  than  others, 
is  still  a  privilege  in  the  twentieth  century.     And  this 
privilege  is  the  one  ad  hominem  argument  in  justification 
of  the  study  of  metaphysics  which  I  would  venture  to  sug- 
gest to  an  audience  already  made  somewhat  familiar  with 
the  inadequacies  and  limitations  of  himian  knowledge.    As 
the  congenial,  however,  may  not  be  the  appropriate,  I  pro- 
ceed to  sketch  the  general  bearings  of  metaphysics,  point- 
ing out  how,  beginning  with  analysis  and  description,  it 
tends  to  become  speculative,  and  to  construct  systems  of 
metaphysics  which  aim  at  complete  conceptions  of  the  uni- 
verse and  have  a  certain  relevancy  to  science,  morals,  and 
religion.    Then  I  will  indicate  how  metaphysics,  influenced 
by  modern  idealistic  speculation,  became  arrogant  as  a 
theory  of  knowledge,  and  how  there  are  present  signs  of 
its  return  to  its  ancient  place  as  a  science  coordinated  with 
the  rest  of  knowledge.    In  concluding,  I  will  consider  how, 
with  this  return,  it  finds  a  new  interest  in  the  interpretation 
of  the  process  of  evolution. 

Either  because  Aristotle  developed  his  science  of  exist- 
ence with  so  much  skill  or  because  the  science  is  to  be 
reckoned,  as  he  reckoned  it,  among  those  intellectual  per- 
formances which  are  excellent,  its  unfortunate  name  has 
never  completely  obscured  its  professed  aims  and  restric- 
tions. Too  often,  indeed,  metaphysics  has  been  made  the 
refuge  of  ignorance,  and  inquirers  in  other  fields  have  been 
too  ready  to  bestow  upon  it  their  own  unsolved  problems 
and  inconsistencies.    Many  have  thus  been  led  to  refuse 

9 


! 


I  -r 


( 


1 


discussion  of  certain  difficulties  for  the  reason  that  thev 

!are  metaphysical,  a  reason  which  may  indicate  that  one  is 
tired  rather  than  that  one  is  wise.  It  has  even  been  sug- 
gested that  so  long  as  problems  are  unsolved  they  are 
metaphysical.  Even  so,  the  study,  on  account  of  the  com- 
prehensiveness thus  given  to  it,  might  advance  itself,  im- 
posing and  commanding,  a  guarantor  of  intellectual  mod- 
esty. Yet  metaphysicians,  as  a  rule,  have  not  regarded 
their  work  as  that  of  salvation.  They  have  viewed  their 
problems  as  the  result  of  reflection  rather  than  of  emer- 

-^  gency.  And  their  reflection  has  ever  seized  upon  the  fact 
that  nature's  great  and  manifold  diversities  do,  none  the 
less,  in  spite  of  that  diversity,  consent  to  exist  together  in 
some  sort  of  union,  and  that,  consequently,  some  under- 
standing of  that  unity  is  a  thing  to  attempt.  Metaphysics, 
therefore,  may  still  adopt  the  definition  and  limitations 
.  set  for  it  by  Aristotle.  We  may,  indeed,  define  it  in  other 
terms,  calling  it,  for  instance,  the  science  of  jeality,  but 
our  altered  words  still  point  out  that  metaphysical  interest 
is  in  the  world  as  a  world  of  cQnnected  things,  a  world  with 
;  a  general  character  in  addition  to  those  specific  characters 
which  give  it  its  variety  and  make  many  sciences  necessary 
for  its  comprehension. 

The  term  "reality,"  however,  is  intellectually  agile.  It 
tends  to  play  tricks  with  one's  prejudices  and  to  lead  desire 
on  a  merry  chase.  For  to  denominate  anything  real  is 
usually  to  import  a  distinction,  and  to  consign,  thereby, 
something  else  to  the  region  of  appearance.  Could  we 
keep  the  region  of  appearance  from  becoming  populated, 
it  might  remain  nothing  more  than  the  natural  negative 
implication  of  a  region  of  positive  interest.  But  reality, 
once  a  king,  makes  many  exiles  who  crave  and  seek  citizen- 
I  ship  in  the  land  from  which  they  have  been  banished.    The 

vi    term  "reality,"  therefore,  should  inspire  caution  instead 
of  confidence  in  metaphysics— a  lesson  which  history  has 

10 


:/ 


! 


V 


abundantly  illustrated,  but  which  man  is  slow  to  learn. 
Contrast  those  imposing  products  of  human  fancy  which 
we  call  materialism  and  idealism,  each  relegating  the  other 
to  the  region  of  appearance,  and  what  are  they  at  bottom 
but  an  exalted  prejudice  for  matter  and  an  exalted  preju- 
dice for  mind  ?    And  had  not  their  conflict  been  spectacular, 
as  armies  with  banners,  what  a  pitiable  spectacle  it  would 
have  presented,  since  a  child's  first  thought  destroys  the 
one,  and  every  smallest  grain  of  sand  the  other?     No;^ 
everything  is  somehow  real ;  and  to  make  distinctions  with- 
in that  realm  demands  caution  and  hesitation.  v 
Thus  it  is  that  the  concept  of  reality  has  become  an  im- 
portant theme  in  a  great  part  of  metaphysical  inquiry,  ^ 
and  that  a  keen  appreciation  of  its  varieties  is  essential  to  j 
the   historian   of   metaphysics.      That   science   has   been 
thought  to  suffer  from  a  too  close  scrutiny  into  the  idiosyn- 
crasies of  its  past ;  but  being  somewhat  ancient  and  robust, 
and,  withal,  decidedly  human,  it  may  consult  the  reflection 
that  more  youthful  sciences  have  not  always  walked  in 
wisdom's  path,  and  so  bear  its  own  exposure  with  some 
consequent  consolation.    Yet  what  it  has  to  reveal  in  the  | 
light  of  the  shifting  concept  of  reality  is  significant  indeed,  f 
For  we  have  come  to  learn  that  to  call  anything  real  ex- 
clusively, is  to  imply  a  preference,  and  that  preference  is 
largely  a  matter  of  the  time  in  which  it  is  born.    It  reflects 
an  age,  an  occasion,  a  society,  a  moral,  intellectual,  or 
economic  condition.    It  does  not  reflect  an  absolute  posi- 
tion which  knows  no  wavering.    For  me,  just  now,  meta- 
physics is  the  most  real  thing  imaginable,  more  real  than 
chemistry  or  the  stock  exchange.    In  displaying  some  en- 
thusiasm for  it,  I  care  not  if  the  elements  revert  to  ether 
or  how  the  market  goes.    To  be  invited  just  now  to  con- 
sider the  periodic  law  or  the  latest  market  quotations, 
would  irritate  me.    An  altered  situation  would  find  me, 
doubtless,  possessed  of  an  altered  preference,  indifferent 

11 


^ 


•A* 


no  longer  to  another  science  or  to  the  Street.     So  much* 
does  occasion  determine  preference,  and  preference  reality. 

The  historical  oppositions  in  metaphysics  present  them- 
selves, therefore,  not  as  a  mass  of  conflicting  and  contra- 
dictory opinions  about  the  absolutely  real,  but  as  a  too 
exclusive  championship  of  what  their  exponents  have  be- 
lieved to  be  most  important  for  their  times.  In  such  meta- 
physicians the  enthusiasm  of  the  prophet  has  outrun  the 
disinterestedness  of  the  scientist.  We  may  describe  them  . 
as  men  of  restricted  vision,  but  we  may  not,  therefore,  con- 1 
elude  that  their  vision  was  not  acute.  Plato  was  not  an 
idle  dreamer,  assigning  to  unreality  the  bed  on  which  you  | 
sleep  in  order  that  he  might  convince  you  that  the  only  | 
genuinely  real  bed  is  the  archetype  in  the  mind  of  God, 
the  ideal  bed  of  which  all  others  are  shadows.  Undoubt- 
edly he  converses  thus  about  beds  in  his  "Repubhc,"  but 
he  does  not  advise  you,  as  a  consequence,  to  go  to  sleep  in 
heaven.  He  tells  you,  rather,  that  justice  is  a  social  matter 
which  you  can  never  adequately  administer  so  long  as  your 
attention  is  fixed  solely  on  individual  concerns.  You  must 
seek  to  grasp  justice  as  a  principle,  in  the  light  of  which 
the  different  parts  of  the  body  politic  may  find  their  most 
fruitful  interplay  and  coordination.  His  metaphysics  of 
the  ideal  was  born  of  Athens'  need,  but  his  dialogues  re- 
main instructive  reading  for  the  modern  man.  We  may 
confound  him  by  pointing  out  the  obvious  fact  that  men, 
not  principles,  make  society,  and  yet  accept  his  teaching 
that  men  without  principles  make  a  bad  society,  exalting 
principles  thus  to  the  position  of  the  eminently  real. 

Similarly,  he  who  reads  Fichte's  "Science  of  Knowl- 
edge" should  not  forget  that  Fichte  spoke  to  the  German 
people,  calling  them  a  nation.  And  the  response  he  met 
must  have  seemed,  in  his  eyes,  no  small  justification  of  his 
view  that  reality  is  essentially  a  self-imposed  moral  task. 
And  Spencer,  influenced  by  social  and  economic  reorgani- 

12 


-^ 


*** 


zation  and  consolidation,  could  force  the  imiverse  into  a 
formula  and  think  that  he  had  said  the  flnal  word  about 
reality.    Thus  any  exclusive  conception  of  reality  is  ren-  ^\ 
dered  great,  not  by  its  finality  for  all  times,  but  by  its  his- 
torical appropriateness. 

Such  questions,  therefore,  as.  What  is  real?  Is  there 
any  reality  at  all?  Is  not  everything  illusion,  or  at  least 
part  of  everything?  and  such  statements  as.  Only  the 
good  is  real,  Only  matter  is  real.  Only  mind  is  real.  Only 
energy  is  real,  are  questions  and  statements  to  be  asked 
and  made  only  by  persons  with  a  mission.  For  reality 
means  either  everything  whatsoever  or  that  a  distinction 
has  been  made,  a  distinction  which  indicates  not  a  differ- 
ence in  the  fact  of  existence,  but  a  difference  in  point  of 
view,  in  value,  in  preference,  in  relative  importance  for 
.some  desire  or  choice.  Yet  it  is  doubtless  the  business  of 
metaphysics  to  undertake  an  examination  and  definition 
of  the  different  points  of  view  from  which  those  questions 
can  be  asked  and  those  statements  made.  Indeed,  that 
undertaking  may  well  be  regarded  as  one  of  the  most  im- 
portant in  metaphysics.  The  outcome  of  it  is  not  a  super- 
ficial doctrine  of  the  relativity  of  the  real,  with  the  accom- 
panying advice  that  each  of  us  select  his  own  reality  and 
act  accordingly.  Nor  is  it  the  doctrine  that  since  nothing 
or  everything  is  absolutely  real,  there  is  no  solid  basis  for 
conduct  and  no  abiding  hope  for  man.  That  individualism 
which  is  willful  and^at  kind  of  agnosticism  which  is  not  | 
intellectual  reserve,  but  which  is  intellectual  complacency, 
have  no  warrant  in  metaphysics.;  On  the  contrary,  the 
doctrine  of  metaphysics  is  much  more  obvious  and  much  i' 
more  sane.  It  is  that  existence,  taken  comprehensively, 
is  an  affair  of  distinctions;  that  existence  is  shot  through 
and  through  with  variety. 

But  this  is  not  ail.    Metaphysics  discovers  in  the  fact  of  I 
variety  a  reason  for  the  world's  onward  movement.    For 

13 


/ 


a  world  without  variety  would  be  a  world  eternally  still, 
unchanged  and  unchanging  through  all  the  stretches  of 
time.  We  might  endow  such  a  world  with  imlimited  power, 
capable,  if  once  aroused,  of  a  marvelous  reaction ;  but  un- 
less there  existed  somewhere  within  it  a  difference,  no 
tremor  of  excitement  would  ever  disturb  its  endless  slima- 
ber.  All  the  sciences  teach  this  doctrine.  Even  logic  and 
mathematics,  the  most  static  of  them  all,  require  variables, 
if  their  l^rmulations  are  to  have  any  significance  or  appli- 
y  cation.  /Knowledge  thus  reflects  the  basal  structure  of 
^  things.  And  in  this  fact  that  differences  are  fundamental 
in  the  constitution  of  our  world,  we  discover  the  reason  why 
all  those  systems  of  metaphysics  eventually  fail  which  at- 
tempt to  reduce  all  existence  to  a  single  type  of  reality 
devoid  of  variety  in  its  internal  make-up^S. 

The  variety  in  our  world  involves  drfurther  doctrine. 

'  I  While  all  varieties  as  such  are  equally  real,  they  are  not 
all  equally  effective.  They  make  different  sorts  of  differ- 
ences, and  introduce,  thereby,  intensive  and  qualitative 
distinctions.  The  onward  movement  of  the  world  is  thus, 
not  simply  successive  change,  but  a  genuine  development 
or  evolution.  It  creates  a  past  the  contents  of  which  must 
forever  remain  what  they  were,  but  it  proposes  a  future 
where  variety  may  still  exercise  its  difference-making  func- 
tion. And  that  is  why  we  human  beings,  acting  our  part 
in  some  cosmic  comedy  or  tragedy,  may  not  be  indifferent 
to  our  performance  or  to  the  preferences  we  exalt.    The 

^  future  makes  us  all  reformers,  inviting  us  to  meddle  with 
the  world,  to  use  it  and  change  it  for  our  ends.  The  invi- 
tation is  genuine  and  made  in  good  faith,  for  all  man's 
folly  is  not  yet  sufficient  to  prove  it  insincere.  That  is  why 
it  has  been  easy  to  believe  that  God  once  said  to  man:  "Be 
fruitful  and  multiply,  and  replenish  the  earth,  and  subdue 
it ;  and  have  dominion  over  the  fish  of  the  sea,  and  over  the 
fowl  of  the  air,  and  over  every  living  thing  that  moveth 

14 


J 


upon  the  earth."  That  is  why,  also,  willful  individualism 
and  complacent  agnosticism  have  no  warrant  in  meta- 
physics. iSince  all  things  are  equally  real,  but  all  not 
equally  important,  the  world's  evolution  presents  itself  as 
a  drift  towards  results,  as  something  purposeful  and  in- 
tended.- While  we  may  not  invoke  design  to  explain  this  . 
relative  importance  of  things,  the  world's  trend  puts  us 
under  the  natural  obligation  of  discovering  how  it  may  be 
controlled,  and  enforces  the  obligation  with  obvious  penal- 
ties. Thus  willfulness  receives  natural  punishment  and 
the  universe  never  accepts  ignorance  as  an  excuse. 

It  seems  difficult,  therefore,  not  to  describe  evolution  as 
a  moral  process.  By  that  I  do  not  mean  that  nature  is 
especially  careful  about  the  kinds  of  things  she  does  or 
that  she  is  true  and  just  in  all  her  dealings.  But  evolution 
is  movement  controlled  by  the  relative  importance  of  i 
things.  We  consequently  find  such  terms  as  "struggle," 
"survival,"  "adaptation,"  useful  in  the  description  of  it. 
And  although  these  terms  may  appear  more  appropriate 
to  the  development  of  living  things  than  to  that  of  inor- 
ganic nature,  we  may  not  overlook  the  fact  that  the  physi- 
cal world  also  begets  varieties  and  has  its  character  deter- 
mined by  their  relative  importance. 

Thus  it  is  that  the  metaphysical  doctrine  of  final  causes 
appears  to  be  fundamentally  sound.  It  is  easy  to  render 
it  ridiculous  by  supposing  that  things  were  once  made  on 
purpose  to  exhibit  the  features  and  manners  of  action 
which  we  now  discover  in  them,  or  by  conceiving  adapta- 
tion as  an  efficient  cause  of  events,  as  if  the  fact  that  we 
see  were  the  reason  why  we  have  eyes.  So  conceived  the 
doctrine  of  final  causes  is  justly  condemned.  On  the  other 
hand,  however,  how  superficial  is  the  opinion  that  in  nature 
there  is  entire  indifference  to  results,  and  that  there  are  no 
natural  goods !  To-day  is  not  simply  yesterday  rearranged 
or  twenty-four  hours  added  to  a  capricious  time;  it  is 

15 


/ 


( 


J 


yesterday  reorganized,  with  yesterday's  results  carried 
on  and  intensified.  So  that  we  might  say  that  nature, 
having  accidentally  discovered  that  the  distinction  be- 
tween light  and  darkness  is  a  natural  good,  stuck  to 
the  business  of  making  eyes.  We  should  thus  express 
a  natural  truth,  but  should  not  thereby  free  ourselves 
from  the  obligation  of  discovering  how  nature  had 
achieved  so  noteworthy  a  result.  That  obligation  the 
doctrine  of  final  causes  most  evidently  does  not  discharge, 
.because  final  causes  have  never  been  found  adequate  to 

?r  reveal  the  method  of  nature's  working.  Again  and  again, 
some  investigator,  impressed  by  the  undoubted  fact  of  na- 
ture's continuity,  by  her  carefulness  of  the  type,  by  her 
preservation  of  forms,  by  that  character  of  hers  which  we 
can  properly  describe  only  by  calling  it  preferential  or 
moral,  impressed  by  these  things  he  has  attempted  to  turn 
them  into  efficient  causes,  factors  operative  in  the  mecha- 
nism of  the  world.  And  he  has  repeatedly  failed.  It  is, 
consequently,  not  prejudice  which  leads  many  students  of 
nature's  processes  to  insist  that  these  are  ultimately  what 

\  we  call  mechanical.  It  is  metaphysical  insight.  Yet  that 
insight  may  readily  degenerate  into  the  most  superficial 
philosophy,  if  it  leads  us  to  forget  that  mechanism  is  the 
means  by  which  the  gnds_of  nature  are  reached.  For 
nature  undoubtedly  exists  for  what  she  accomplishes,  and 
it  is  that  fact  which  gives  to  mechanism  its  relevancy,  its 
importance,  and  its  high  value.  I  Thus  metaphysics,  true 
to  its  early  formulations,  finds  trie  world  to  be  both  me- 
chanical and  teleological,  both  a  quantitative  relation  of 
parts  and  a  qualitative  realization  of  goods.  Some  indica- 
tion that  this  finding  is  correct  may  be  discovered  in  our 
instinctive  recognition  that  nature  is  appropriately  de- 
scribed both  in  the  formulations  of  science  and  in  the 
expressions  of  poetry.^ 

Z'   Metaphysical  analysis  tends  thus  to  disclose  existence  as  \ 

L  16 


-&\ 


J 


a  process  motived  by  the  variety  of  its  factors,  as  an  evolu- 
tion characterized,  not  by  indifference,  but  by  selection 
based  on  the  relative  importance  of  its  factors  for  the  main- 
tenance of  natural  goods,  as_a  development  ex^^ 
through,an  elaborate  mechanism.  It  is  natural  that  meta- 
physics should  become  speculative  and  attempt  the  con- 
struction of  a  system  of  things  wherein  its  obvious  disclo- 
sures may  be  envisaged  with  coherence  and  simplicity,  and 
thus  be  rationally  comprehended  and  explained.  It  is  in 
such  attempts  that  metaphysics  has  historically  scored  its 
greatest  successes  and  its  greatest  failures.  The  lesson  to 
be  derived  from  a  survey  of  them  is,  doubtless,  one  of  grave 
caution,  but  it  would  be  idle  to  affirm  that  we  have  seen 
the  last  of  great  systems  of  metaphysics.  Democritus, 
Plato,  Aristotle,  Bruno,  Descartes,  Hobbes,  Spinoza, 
Newton,  Leibnitz,  Berkeley,  Kant,  Laplace,  Hegel,  Spen- 
cer—to mention  only  the  greatest  names— each  has  had 
his  system  of  the  world  which  still  has  power  to  affect  the 
thought  and  lives  of  men.  System  is  beloved  of  man'^f^^^>/^^i 
imagination  and  his  mmd  is  restless  in  the  presence  o^^^  ^^ 
connected  and  unsupported  details.  He  will  see  thmgs  j 
suhspecie'ceternitatis  even  while  time  counts  out  his  sands  ^ 

of  life.    It  is  a  habitJ^e^otten  of  nature,  to  be  neither  justi-  ' 

fied  nor  condemned,     ft  wouHTeabsurd 
to  regard  aHy  system  of  metaphysics^^  \/ 

but  it  would  be  more  absurd  to  refuse  to  make  one  on  that 
account:    FoFstich  systems  constitute  the  supreme  at-f^ 
tempts  of  intelligence  at  integration.     They  propose  to 
tell  us  what  our  world  would  be  like  if  our  present  restricted  ^ 
knowledge  were  adequate   for  its  complete  exposition. » 
They  are  not,  therefore,  to  be  abandoned  because  they  are 
always  inadequate,  incomplete,  and  provisional;  they  are 
rather  to  be  pursued,  because,  when  constructed  by  the 
^\^se,  they  are  always  ennobling  and  minister  faithfully  to 
the  freedom  of  the  mind. 

17 


'1 


ivt^ 


Protests  against  metaphysical  systems  are,  consequently, 
apt  to  be  proofs  of  an  impatient  temper  rather  than  of 
sound  judgment.  Yet  such  systems  often  grow  arrogant, 
and  become,  thereby,  objects  of  justified  suspicion.  Being 
the  crowning  enterprise  of  intelligence,  to  be  worn,  one 
might  say,  as  an  indication  of  a  certain  nobility  of  mind, 
they  forfeit  the  claim  to  be  thus  highly  regarded  if  they 
are  made  the  essential  preliminaries  of  wisdom.  Yet  the 
too  eager  and  the  too  stupid  have  often  claimed  that  the 
only  possible  foundation  for  the  truth  and  value  of  science, 
and  the  only  possible  warrant  for  morality  and  human 
aspiration,  are  to  be  found  in  a  system  of  metaphysics.  If 
such  a  claim  meant  only  that  with  a  perfect  system,  could 
we  attain  it,  would  riddles  all  be  solved  and  life's  darkness 
made  supremely  clear,  it  would  express  an  obvious  truth. 
But  made  with  the  intent  of  laying  metaphysics  down  as 
the  foundation  of  science,  of  morality,  and  of  religion,  it 
is  obviously  false  and  iniquitous.  In  our  enthusiasm  we 
may  indeed  speak  of  metaphysics  as  the  queen  of  all  the 
sciences,  but  she  can  wear  the  title  only  if  her  behavior  is 
queenly;  she  forfeits  it  when,  ceasing  to  reign,  she  stoops 
to  rule. 

Yet  there  is  justice  in  the  notion  that  metaphysics,  es- 
pecially in  its  systematic  shape,  should  contribute  to  the 
value  of  science,  and  be  a  source  of  moral  and  religious 
enlightenment.  Its  greatest  ally  is  logic.  In  the  system- 
atic attempt  to  reduce  to  order  the  business  of  getting  and 
evaluating  knowledge,  in  distinguishing  fruitful  from 
fruitless  methods,  and,  above  all,  in  attempting  to  disclose 
the  sort  of  conquest  knowledge  makes  over  the  world,  the 
aims  and  achievements  of  science  should  become  better  ap- 
preciated and  understood.  It  is  still  true,  as  Heraclitus  of 
old  remarked,  that  much  information  does  not  make  a  man 
wise,  but  wisdom  is  intelligent  understanding. 

The  disclosures  of  metaphysics  are  equally  significant 

18 


r^ 


for  ethics.  The  great  systems  have  usually  eventuated  in 
a  theory  of  morals.  And  this  is  natural.  Metaphysics, 
disclosing  the  fact  that  behavior  is  a  primary  feature  of 
things,  raises  inevitably  the  question  of  how  to  behave  ef-  j 
fectively  and  well.  Emphasizing  the  relative  importance 
of  the  factors  of  evolution,  it  encourages  the  repeated  val- 
l^tion  of  human  goods.  It  can  make  no  man  moral,  norjpc 
giT^e  him  a,  rule  to  guide  him  infallibly  in  his  choices  and 
acts ;  but  it  can  impress  upon  him  the  fact  that  he  is  under 
a  supreme  obligation,  that  of  living  a  life  controlled,  not 
by  passion,  but  by  reason,  and  of  making  his  knowledge 
contribute  to  the  well-being  of  society.  It  will  still  preach 
its  ancient  moral  lesson,  that  since  with  intelligence  has 
arisen  some  comprehension  of  the  world,  the  world  is  best 
improved,  not  by  passions  or  by  parties,  not  by  govern- 
ments or  by  sects,  but  by  the  persisterj:  operatjon^f  intel- , 
ligence  itself. 

After  a  somewhat  similar  manner,  metaphysics  in  its 
systematic  character  has  significance  for  theology.     To 
speak  of  existence  as  a  riddle  is  natural,  because  so  much 
of  its  import  can  be  only  guessed.     That  it  has  import, 
most  men  suspect,  and  that  this  import  is  due  to  superior 
beings  or  powers  is  the  conviction  of  those  who  are  re- 
ligious.    Metaphysics  is  seldom  indifferent  to  such  sus- 
picions and  convictions.     As  it  has  a  lively  sense  of  the  \^  m 
unity  of  things,  it  is  led  to  seek  ultimate  reasons  for  the 
world's  stability.    And  as  it  deals  with  such  conceptions  as  \ 
"the  infinite"  and  "the  absolute,"  it  has  a  certain  linguistic  \ 
sympathy  with  faith.     Consequently,  while  it  has  never  1 
made  a  religion,  it  has  been  used  as  an  apology  for  many.  , 
This  fact  witnesses,  no  doubt,  more  profoundly  to  the 
adaptability  of  metaphysics  than  it  does  to  the  finality  of 
the  ideas  it  has  been  used  to  sustain.     Yet  metaphysics, 
tending  to  keep  men  ever  close  to  the  sources  of  life,  fosters 
a  whole-hearted  acceptance  of  life's  responsibilities  and 

19 


f 


\i 


duties.  It  is  thus  the  friend  of  natural  piety.  And  in 
superimposing  upon  piety  systematic  reflection  on  what 
we  call  the  divine,  it  follows  a  natural  instinct,  and  seeks 
to  round  out  man's  conception  of  the  universe  as  the  source 
of  his  being,  the  place  of  his  sojourning,  the  begettor  of 
his  impulses  and  his  hopes,  and  the  final  treasury  of  what 
he  has  been  and  accomplished. 

Such,  then,  are  the  general  nature  and  scope  of  meta- 
physical inquiry.  (With  Aristotle  we  may  define  meta- 
physics as  the  science  of  existence  and  distinguish  it  from 
other  departments  of  knowledge  by  its  generality  and  its 
^  lack  of  attention  to  those  specific  features  of  existence 
\  which  make  many  sciences  an  intellectual  necessity.  Ex- 
istence, considered  generally,  presents  itself  as  an  affair 
of  connected  varieties  and,  consequently,  as  an  onward 
movement.  Because  the  varieties  have  not  all  the  same 
efficacy,  the  movement  presents  those  selective  and  moral 
characters  which  we  ascribe  to  a  development  or  evolution. 
While  the  efficient  causes  of  this  evolution  appear  to  be 
mechanical,  the  mechanism  results  in  the  production  of 
natural  goods,  and  thus  justifies  a  doctrine  of  final  causes. 
Upon  such  considerations  metaphysics  may  superimpose 
speculative  reflection,  and  attempt  to  attain  a  unified  sys- 
tem of  the  world.  It  may  also  attempt  to  evaluate  science 
in  terms  of  logical  theory,  to  enlarge  morality  through  a 
theory  of  ethics,  and  to  interpret  natural  piety  and  religion 
in  terms  of  theological  conceptions.    Metaphysics  proposes 

ythus  both  an  analysis  and  a  theory  of  existence ;  it  is  de- 
scriptive  and  it  is  systematic.  If  metaphysicians  often 
forget  that  theory  is  not  analysis,  that  system  is  not  descrip- 
tion, it  is  not  because  they  are  metaphysicians,  but  because 
they  are  human.  For  my  part,  therefore,  I  do  not  see  why 
they  should  not  be  allowed  to  entertain  at  least  as  many 
absurdities  as  the  average  reflective  inquirer.  Greater  in- 
dulgence is  neither  desired  nor  necessary.  And  while  meta- 

20 


I 


/ 


physicians  may  be  hard  to  understand,  ttiey  do  not  like  to 
be  misunderstood.  So  I  emphasize  again  the  fact  that  it 
appears  to  be  the  greatest  abuse  of  metaphysical  theories 
to  use  them  to  justify  natural  excellence  or  to  condone 
natural  folly.  It  is  their  business  to  help  toclarify  exist- 
ence.  It  is  not  their  busmess  to  constitute  an  apology  tor 
our  prejudices  or  tor  our  desires. 

'In  regarding  metaphysics  as  the  outcome  of  reflection 
on  existence  in  general,  and,  consequently,  as  a  depart- 
ment of  natural  knowledge,  I  have  supposed  that  intelli- 
gent persons .  could  undertake  such  reflection  and  accom- 
plish something  of  interest  and  consequence,  by  following  j 
the  ordinary  experimental  methods  of  observation  and 
tested  generalization.  I  have  stated  that  the  contrast  be- 
tween metaphysics  and  other  departments  of  knowledge; 
arises  from  its  emphasis  on  generalities  and  their  emphasis 
on  particulars.  In  doing  all  this  I  have  followed  ancient  * 
tradition.  But  much  of  modern  philosophy  has  emphati- 
cally declared  that  such  an  attitude  is  decidedly  too  naive. 
Keenly  alive  to  the  fact,  which  it  credits  itseli  with  dis- 
covering, the  fact,  namely,  that  the  world  into  which  we 
inquire  exists  for  us  only  as  the  mind's  object,  that  philos- 
ophy has  insisted  that  the  mind  is  central  in  the  universe, 
and  that  the  nature  and  laws  of  mind  are,  therefore,  the 
determining  factors  in  the  structure  of  the  world  we 
know.      "^x  f 

Of  this  view  Kant  was  the  great  systematic  expounder. 
It  was  he  who  taught  that  space  and  time  are  but  the  forms 
of  sense  perception.  It  was  he  who  declared  that  the  basal 
principles  of  physics  are  but  derivatives  of  the  principles 
of  the  mind.  It  was  he  who  affirmed  that  by  virtue  of  our 
understanding  we  do  not  discover  the  laws  of  nature,  but 
impose  them.  He  consequently  drew  the  conclusion  that 
we  know  only  the  appearances  of  things  connected  accord- 
ing to  the  laws  of  the  mind,  but  never  the  things  them- 

21 


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selves  connected  according  to  their  own  laws.  The  moral 
Ae  drew  pointed  in  the  direction  of  intellectual  modesty 
"rand  an  enlightened  reliance  on  experience.  But  to  make 
nature  nothing  but  a  collection  of  appearances  in  the  mind, 
imited  according  to  the  supposed  necessities  of  thought,  is 
really  to  discourage  experience  and  bid  imagination  riot. 
For  in  the  critical  philosophy  of  Kant  we  have  suggested 
a  science  which  is  higher  than  the  sciences,  a  set  of  prin- 
ciples upon  which  they  depend,  and  from  which  might  pos- 
sibly be  deduced  by  the  mere  operation  of  thought  all 
that  is  essential  to  their  content.  We  have  also  suggested 
a  method  of  inquiry  which  is  no  longer  based  on  experi- 
mental observation  and  generalization,  but  which  is  con- 
trolled by  principles  supposed  to  be  purely  a  priori,  and 
^  thus  more  fundamental  than  experience  itself.  Metaphys- 
I  ics,  by  entering  that  supposed  region  of  purer  insight,  cut 
I  itself  off  from  all  helpful  competition  and  coordination 
with  the  rest  of  knowledge.  It  begot  those  great  systems 
of  idealistic  philosophy  which  Professor  Santayana  has 
characterized  as  "visionaFy  insolence.''  It  produced  that 
lamentable  conflict  between  science  and  metaphysics  which 
was  so  characteristic  of  the  last  century.  No  department 
j  of  knowledge  can  thrive  in  isolation.  If  metaphysics,  by 
arrogating  to  itself  supremacy,  tended  to  become  vision- 
i;  ary,  the  sciences  also,  despising  metaphysical  insight, 
\    itended  to  become  disorganized  and  illiberal. 

Happily  in  our  own  day  there  are  many  signs  that  this 
/  unfortunate  antithesis  between  science  and  metaphysics  is 
V  disappearing.  Metaphysics  itself,  by  a  sort  of  inner  evolu- 
tion, has  been  working  out  to  a  more  objective  view  of 
things.  On  the  other  hand,  the  sciences,  through  their 
own  extension,  have  come  upon  unsuspected  generalities 
and  coordinations.  Above  all,  the  principle  of  evolution, 
which  was  early  recognized  in  metaphysical  theories,  has 
served,  by  its  general  recognition  in  all  departments  of 

22 


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II 


H- 


knowledge,  to  restore  unity  among  the  sciences.  It  has 
forced  ideaUsm  to  recognize  that  even  intelligence,  the 
mind  itself,  has  had  a  natural  history.  Metaphysics  is  thus 
leaving  its  position  of  isolation,  and  returning  to  its  an- 
cient place  as  a  science  coordinated  with  the  rest  of 
knowledge. 

But  it  returns  not  without  modification  and  not  without 
its  own  interest  in  evolutionary  theory.  It  will  still,  as  of 
old,  seek  to  discover  the  basal  types  of  existence  and  their 
general  modes  of  operation.  It  will  still  ask.  What  can 
we  say  of  existence  as  a  whole  which  is  true  of  it?  But  it 
as  learned  from  idealism  that  while  it  may  view  intelli- 
gence as  the  instrument  of  knowledge,  it  may  not  hope  to 
understand  nature  as  a  process  if  the  place  of  intelligence 
in  that  process  is  disregarded.  For  to  reconstruct  in 
thought  the  world's  vanished  past  and  to  forecast  its  pos- 
sible future  is  to  give  to  intelligence  a  certain  baffling  and 
perplexing  importance  in  the  scheme  of  things.  In  attack- 
ing this  problem  of  the  place  of  intelligence  in  an  evolving 
world,  metaphysics  may  not,  however,  boast  that  it  has  a 
method  peculiarly  its  own.  It  may  not  hope  to  control  the 
inquiry  by  principles  supposed  to  be  derived  from  pure 
reason  and  thus  to  have  a  higher  warrant  than  the  prin- 
ciples employed  in  other  sciences.  For  metaphysics  has 
come  to  believe  in  the  evolution  of  intelligence  because  it 
has  been  so  taught  by  the  method  of  experimental  in- 
vestigation. It  can  not,  therefore,  discredit  that  method 
without  discrediting  its  own  belief. 

We  may,  indeed,  be  at  first  bewildered  by  the  fact  that 
the  world  in  which  intelligence  has  evolved  is  the  world 
which  intelligence  has  discovered ;  but  if  we  accept  the  dis- 
covery, we  do  but  recognize  in  intelligence  a  natural  good 
whose  use  and  final  cause  is  to  make  us  somewhat  ac- 
quainted with  our  dwelling-place.  The  world  thus  exists 
as  just  what  we  have  discovered  it  to  be,  the  place  in  which 

23 


J 


^ 


^ 


intelligence  has  dawned  and  led  to  a  knowledge  of  the 
process  in  which  such  a  great  event  has  happened.    It  is 
natural,  therefore,  to  claim  that  in  reflecting  on  our  world 
we  may  largely  disregard  the  fact  that  we  reflect.    Real- 
izing that  in  him  has  arisen  inteUigence,  knowledge,  under- 
standing of  the  world,  as  the  stoutest  weapon  in  his  life's 
warfare,  man  realizes  that  his  weapon  is  for  use  rather  than 
for  scrutiny.    Its  excellence  is  to  be  tested  by  the  territory 
won,  and  not  by  inquisitive  feeling  of  the  sharpness  of  the 
blade— especially  when  that  blade  sharpens  only  with  its 
conquering  use.    Thus,  as  I  say,  we  may  largely  disregard  , 
the  fact  that  we  reflect.    By  so  doing,  the  world  grows  to 
clearness  as  the  thing  reflected  on.    Its  laws  and  processes 
take  shape  in  useful  formulas.    It  is  thus  that  the  sciences 
advance  to  their  great  contributions.    And  why^^RQti  then, 
metaphysics?    Why  should  we  rather  hope  that  by  making 
the  mind  itself  exclusively  the  object  of  our  study,  an 
added  clearness  will  be  given  to  the  scheme  of  things? 
'  '  But  we  can  never  wholly  disregard  the  fact  that  we  re- 

r fleet,  because  the  dawn  of  intelligence  in  the  world  is  an 
event  of  too  great  interest  to  be  accepted  merely  as  a  matter 
of  record.  If  we  are  warranted  in  regarding  it  as  a  natural 
good  whose  use  is  to  acquaint  us  with  the  world,  we  are, 
doubtless,  also  warranted  in  regarding  it  as  the  situation 
in  which  the  world's  evolution  is  most  clearly  and  effec- 
tively revealed.  If,  now,  we  interpret  this  situation  as 
diff^ering  from  all  others  only  by  the  fact  that  in  it  we  have 
immediate  knowledge  of  what  it  is  to  be  an  evolution,  we 
attain  a  suggestive  basis  for  generalization.  From  it  we 
find  little  warrant  to  conclude  that  the  present  is  simply 
the  unfolding  of  a  past,  possibly  of  a  very  remote  past,  or 
that  the  future  is  simply  the  present  unfolded.  Evolution 
appears  to  be  a  process  of  a  totally  different  sort.  It  ap- 
pears to  be  always  and  eternally  the  unfolding  of  an  ef- 
fective present.    Behind  it,  it  leaves  the  past  as  the  record 

24 


^ 


^ 


of  what  it  has  done,  the  totality  of  things  accomplished, 
but  not  the  promise  and  potency  of  things  to  be.  It  is  a 
dead  past.  As  such  it  may  be  conditioning;  but  it  is  not 
effective,  because,  it  is  accomplished.  To  the  present  alone 
belong  the  riches  of  potentiality  and  spontaneity;  to  it 
alone  belongs  efficiency.  We  are,  thus,  under  no  obliga- 
tion to  seek  in  endless  regress  through  the  past  the  source 
of  the  world's  becoming  or  the  secret  of  its  variety  and 

human  interest. 

If  such  an  interpretation  of  evolution  is  warranted,  that 
process  may  indeed  be  described  as  having  purpose.    Only 
we  may  not  understand  by  purpose  some  anciently  con- 
ceived plan  which  the  world  was  intended  to  follow.    We 
should  not  invoke  foresight,  but  should  recognize  historical 
continuity.    For  when  we  have  a  process  going  on  in  such 
a  manner  that  the  present  of  it  is  continually  transforming 
itself  into  the  record  of  what  it  has  done,  writing,  as  it 
.were,  a  cosmic  history,  then,  surely,  we  have  a  purpose. 
Such  a  process  can  be  comprehended  only  as  one  having 
meaning  and  significance.    Its  factors  are  bound  together 
not  only  as  cause  and  effect,  but  also  as  means  and  end. 
Shed  intelligence  upon  any  of  its  events,  and  the  question, 
Why?  will  leap  into  being  with  its  insistent  demands. 
The  question  sends  us  searching  through  the  records  of  the 
past  and  the  promise  of  the  future  in  order  that  the  event 
may  be  estimated  at  its  proper  value.  Only  by  such  search: 
ing  may  we  hope  to  discover  what  the  world's  purpose  is. 
We  may  call  it,  in  one  word,  achievement.    And  I  must 
believe,  just  because  achievement  is  wrought  through  an 
effective  present,  that  the  world,  as  it  passes  from  moment 
to  moment  of  its  existence,  carries  ever  with  it  perennial 
sources  of  outlook  and  novelty.    And  I  must  believe,  too, 
that  just  in  proportion  as  we  free  ourselves  from  the  des- 
perate notion  that  somewhere  and  somehow  hope  and  out- 
look have  been,  once  for  all,  fixed  unalterably  for  the 

25 


world's  future,  we  shall  then  find  in  our  union  with  nature 
a  source  of  genuine  enthusiasm. 

Yes,  we  can  not  wholly  disregard  the  fact  that  we  reflect. 
We  must  note  that  the  knowledge  of  the  evolution  of  intel- 
ligence is  itself  a  product  of  intelligence.  Thus  taking  note, 
we  may  discover  in  the  evolution  of  intelligence,  not  only 
the  world  grown  to  the  highest  point  of  varied  and  efficient 
action  that  we  know,  but  evolution  itself  disclosed  for  what 
it  is  in  its  essential  nature.  It  is  the  ceaseless  unfolding  of 
an  effective  present  which  carries  with  it  the  sources  of 
what  it  achieves,  and  whose  achievements  have  the  value 
they  disclose  as  discovered  factors  in  the  universal  history 
of  the  world. 


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26 


> 


« 


COLUMBIA  UNIVERSITY  PRESS 


A  SERIES  of  twenty-two  lectures  descriptive  in  untechnical  language  of 
the  achievements  in  Science,  Philosophy  and  Art,  and  indicating  the 
present  status  of  these  subjects  as  concepts  of  human  knowledge,  are  being 
delivered  at  Columbia  University,  during  the  academic  year  1907-1908,  by 
various  professors  chosen  to  represent  the  several  departments  of  instruction. 


> 


MATHEMATICS,  by  Cassius  Jackson  Keyser,  Adrain  Professor  of  Mathe- 
matics. 

PHYSICS,  by  Ernest  Fox  Nichols,  Professor  of  Experimental  Physics. 

CHEMISTRY,  by  Charles  F.  Chandler,  Professor  of  Chemistry. 

ASTRONOMY,  by  Harold  Jacoby,  Rutherfurd  Professor  of  Astronomy. 

GEOLOGY,  by  James  Furman  Kemp,  Professor  of  Geology. 

BIOLOGY,  by  Edmund  B.  Wilson,  Professor  of  Zoology. 

PHYSIOLOGY,  by  Frederic  S.  Lee,  Professor  of  Physiology. 

BOTANY,  by  Herbert  Maule  Richards,  Professor  of  Botany. 

ZOOLOGY,  by  Henry  E.  Crampton,  Professor  of  Zoology. 
VaNTHROPOLOGY,  by  Franz  Boas,  Professor  of  Anthropology. 

ARCHAEOLOGY,  by  James  Rignall  ^httXtv,  Professor  of  Greek  Archae- 
ology and  Art. 
n/HISTORY,  by  James  Harvey  Robinson,  Professor  of  History. 

ECONOMICS,  by  Henry  Rogers  Seager,  Professor  of  Political  Economy. 
n/POLITICS,  by  Charles  A.  Beard,  Adjunct  Professor  of  Politics. 

JURISPRUDENCE,   by  Munroe   Smith,   Professor  of  Roman  Law  and 
Comparative  Jurisprudence. 

SOCIOLOGY,  by  Franklin  Henry  Giddings,  Professor  of  Sociology. 

PHILOSOPHY,  by  Nicholas  Murray  Butler,  President  of  the  University. 

PSYCHOLOGY,  by  Robert  S.   Woodworth,  Adjunct  Professor  of  Psy- 
chology. 
J  METAPHYSICS,  by  Frederick  J.  E.  Woodbridge,  Johnsonian  Professor  of 
Philosophy. 

ETHICS,  by  John  Dewey,  Professor  of  Philosophy. 

PHILOLOGY,   by   A.   V.   W.   Jackson,   Professor   of   Indo-Iranian   Lan- 
guages. 

LITERATURE,  by  Harry  Thurston  Peck,  Anthon  Professor  of  the  Latin 
Language  and  Literature. 


These  lectures  are  published  by  the  Columbia  University  Press  separately  in 
pamphlet  form,  at  the  uniform  price  of  twenty-five  cents,  by  mail  twenty-eight 
cents.     Orders  will  be  taken  for  the  separate  pamphlets,  or  for  the  whole  series. 


Address 

THE  COLUMBIA  UNIVERSITY  PRESS 

Columbia  University,  New  York 


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